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He never said that a person with invisibility was easier to see than a hiding rogue. He said a person with invisibility is not more stealthy than a stealthy rogue. Big difference. Stealth requires more than just being unseen.

I liked the way Mearls described gaining prestige classes. I took that to mean by earning them, perhaps having to accomplish a quest or as a reward for service rendered or by oath and honor. Maybe even come with some purpose or responsibility. 

Thieves backstab, er sneak attack sounds like it might go away, replaced by a combat expertise of their own?

The assassin appeared briefly taking the rogues stuff.

Not a fan of the wizard traditions thing. Someone posted something about there being a divide in the way people want to play the same class. I am firmly in the limited but all powerful wizard rather than the one who glows like a neon sign for all the magical energy he commands. Five minute recharges on leveled spells seems a little much. Talk about your signature spell.

Just give me an extra casting or two a day and I'll be happy. 

I like the reigning in the spells statement. We all know that the first thing we're going to see by the way of splat is spells ans magic items. But if it starts out so stingy and restictive to the spell casre then it might take longer for them to become a nuisance.

He did say that the ranger and the paladin are going to be spell casting classes but they are no where near done yet.

He did also say that they were looking at the tiefling and the dragonborn to be more setting specific, and to better reflect their heritage. I kind of want the tiefling out of the gate because I accidentally incorporated them into my setting through a campaign I ran before tieflings existed. 

Tieflings need to be tainted, though. Maybe the race could be described as having any extraplanar heritage so the Tiefling and Aasimar are really two aspects of the same race.

Sep 13, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Resurrection_Man wrote:

So the guy who is completly invisible is easier to see than that half-orc hidding behind his finger? Lame.

Perceive, not see. Stealth is only purely about sight in video games. And not always even then.

"The wizard is actually due for a major update. We’re planning on adding the concept of an arcane tradition to the class. A tradition reflects how you studied magic and what kind of magic you are skilled in wielding. For instance, you might pick evocation magic as your tradition, making you an invoker. This grants you some bonus weapon and armor proficiencies, plus it gives you a list of invocation school spells that are your tradition’s signature spells. When you cast such a spell, you retain a shard of its magic. Five minutes later, you regain the ability to cast that spell. You don’t need to rest or anything to get the spell back. You studies and techniques allow you to prepare the spell in such a way that you regain its power."

Yeah, sorry that doesn't equal a non-vancian Wizard, that equals a non-vancian specialist Wizard. Also being able to cast fireball several times per encounter is just flat out broken. Without a reduction in power the specialists will be just as broken as previous editions. Not to mention they will get new armor and weapon proficiencies so they will be flat out better than the generalist Wizard. Sorry Mearls, but this doesn't work...

"It’s kind of funny, because we thought the wizard was done until we did the sorcerer and warlock. We learned some stuff from those classes and from the surveys that led us to flesh out school specialization into the idea of traditions."

In other words you heard an outcry for a non-vancian Wizard, then decided once again to shaft those of us that like 4E...

"It’s a little bit of a combination of the two. Some spells need to be reigned in, specifically utility spells that are too good for their level, spells that are really powerful when used in combination with other spells, and the ease of stocking up on magic items and spell slots to make those combinations possible."

So you are saying you will fix the Hold Person/Grease/Ghoul's Touch + Stinking Cloud issues in the play test packet? I'll hold you to that... It also means that spell slots must taper off at no more than 12-20 spell slots total...

"On the other end, there are some simple things we can do, like making sure that an invisible character isn’t as stealthy as a rogue without invisibility. The non-magical classes often rely on bonuses to die rolls rather than the sure things that magic can provide. The rogue in the playtest packet, as an example, is guaranteed a minimum result of 10 on die rolls with trained skills. So, we’re also finding ways to add depth and power to the non-caster classes."

So instead of forcing the Wizard to use arcana checks or giving the target a save for invisibility we give the Rogue auto successes at 1st level equal to superhuman and going up as they level. I can see the level 20 rogues saying from here on out I just take a '1' on any of my trained skill checks because I can't lose. I wouldn't exactly call that fixing anything, Mearls just shifted the power from the Wizard to the Rogue.

"Not really. It was much more answering the desire we saw from players for more round-by-round options for the fighter. The nice thing about expertise dice is that the complexity is in the players hands. We can design a range of options, from a straight forward, knock them over the head fighter, to a fighter who uses more cunning, parries, ripostes, and intricate tactics, to overcome an opponent."

I applaud you for this. Its a great start to a good class concept. Now you just need to flesh it out.

"Both the ranger and paladin will quite likely end up with spells. Neither class is far along in design, but it’s possible we might amp up the spells a little to make the classes more distinct from the fighter."

So those of us that want a martial only ranger or paladin (with smite abilities) are just screwed right?

"I think sneak attack is great as an option, but I also want to make archer rogues, rogues who use trickery and tactics to outfox opponents, rogues who are really good at dodging and frustrating enemies, stuff like that, all become possible. The one thing that I dislike about sneak attack is that it turns all rogues into assassins, or at least gets them to act like that during a fight. I think that when you look at rogues from AD&D, and from fiction, they aren’t all skirmishers or backstabbers.

From a design standpoint, it’s actually not hard at all to make that change. We just need to create options that are as strong as sneak attack and let people pick which ones they want."

Finally some common sense, we are hearing the talk but where's the walk?

"One of the things I’d like to explore is adding some options to the skill system to allow players to add more stuff to their character based on their background. Another idea I’d like to explore, especially as we develop material for settings, is to find ways to tie prestige classes and backgrounds together. For instance, maybe the Knight of the Rose prestige class requires the squire background or a special boon granted by the Grandmaster of the knights, along with the completion of certain tasks and such. I like the idea of fusing in-game actions into prestige classes to make them something you earn via your actions, rather than just something with mechanical prerequisites."

Oh, yay, we have to go back to 3.xE's building your entire character from level 1 to 20 before you even start playing again. I thought we got rid of that...

"Yes, we 100% plan to include multiclassing. Some specialties give you a light touch of another class, but the full system allows you to integrate multiple classes. I see this as simply another area where players can choose how deep they want to go into a class or archetype."

This sounds too much like 3.xE's buffet style multi-classing. The only way to properly do it would be a modified version of the 4E hybrids...

"It was 100% by design, and the intention is to open up spellcasting to more creative options. If we do it right, each spell has two parts. The first portion describes what’s happening in the world, and the second half has the pure mechanics. At some point, as we finish things up, we’ll have to give DMs guidance on how much they want to blend those two things. Some DMs might want 100% mechanics, with no creative casting. For other groups and DMs, driving the action with the story material and flavor is what makes the game interesting. Hopefully, the game sets things up so both groups can apply their approach to spells as they see fit."

This may have been the intent, but spend 5 minutes reading the spells and you realize that its all just mixed together and will cause many arguments...

"Those feats come from your specialty. When you choose a specialty, you basically get a pre-selected list of feats. However, you can mix and match feats as you wish. Some feats have prerequisites that you need to meet, but otherwise you can select them freely.

The idea, though, is to get players to think of that more like building their own, character-specific specialty that has a place in the world. You might pick options based solely on utility or power, but if we do our job right you can look at the specialties tied to those feats and fairly easily create a concept for how those feats fit together to say something about your character as a person."

In other words optimizers will break the system and those that just choose specialties will have the inferior choices....

Yeah, overall not impressed, they did a few things right, but still miss the point...

Sep 13, 2012 -- 2:09PM, Mand12 wrote:

Sep 13, 2012 -- 2:05PM, Daganev wrote:

Sep 13, 2012 -- 2:02PM, Mand12 wrote:

Sep 13, 2012 -- 1:47PM, thewok wrote:

Sep 13, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Resurrection_Man wrote:

So the guy who is completly invisible is easier to see than that half-orc hidding behind his finger? Lame.

Invisibility won't stop you from casting a shadow

You do know how shadows work, right?

Yes, but do you know how invisiblity works?

Does it make you transparent, or does it show whats behind you to the viewer?

I believe there are other ways for invisiblity to work.

Invisibly could be a pyschological force, causing the person who is looking directly at you to be unable to see you. But they can see the effects around you.

It can be casting what is "behind to the front" and visa versa.

It can be slowing down the light in your area so that light doesn't escape your space creating a void.

It can turn all your cells transparent.

How invisiblity works will determine what can or cannot be detected. 

"invisible" means you can't see it.  If you can't see it, then you must see whatever's behind it.

Anything other than transparency means you can be seen.  Because that's how light works.  Even if you create the 'void' you describe, then it just makes you look like a black silhouette. 

Invisibility = transparency.  Nothing else, ever.

Now, if you really want to get nitpicky, we can discuss the fact that if you truly were invisible you'd also wouldn't be able to see anything yourself (otherwise your eyes would be visible).

By your own admission Invisibility can't be complete transparency, so it is probably an illusion that shows what is behind in front (The U.S. military is experimenting with this technology, look it up)